[DeepSpace9er]

The differances in the two ships can be seen in how they are used offensively. Orions are time and again seen jumping into hot battle areas and engageing the Shivan/ NTF forces head on. I can't recall a single time in the main campaign when a Hecate engaged another destroyer in an offensive mission. (The Aquitaine engaging the Moloch corvette in one of the escort missions was self defense against a smaller ship) Instead, the Aquitaine acted as a mobile fighter base, launching strikes against enemy forces in the system from far away.

Save the Sathanas, the Colossus wasnt brought into battle unless the situation called for it. If you remember correctly, the Aquitaine, the Psamtik and another destroyer were originally poised to strike the Sathanas BEFORE it reached Gamma Draconis in the nebula... however the scrapped the plan because the Sathanas was ahead of their thinking.

[TrashMan]

The Destroyer battlegroup my achive victory faster, but a carrier battlegroup can achive it with fewer losses - that's the main difference between them.

Fighters and Bobers RULE in FS2.. you think 200 fighters and 40 bombers will have a big trouble taking out 2 destroyers?

[Havock]

and what would a Helios bomb do if fired into one of the carrier's fighterbays?

that would leave quite a mess wouldn't it?

destroyers are allrounders, and because of the extremely high costs involved in making one, i think that they want to have a "jack of all trades".

should there be carriers, i think they would be corvette sized, small, high mobility carriers capable of getting out of trouble as fast as possible.

also, the suggestion for "big" carriers is not very smart.
if it get's shot, you're ****ed.
really ****ed.
since it would not be made for direct combat, it would not be very heavily arm(or)ed, so one clean hit from either a couple of bombs or big beams would reduce it to a flaming fighter-sarcofagus.
on top of that, it is slow, ponderous and will nto be able to get out of the hotspot when the hotspot is all over his candyass.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Jal-18


Orions have never been described as carriers  If you mean this line from the Tech Room:

 

That does not make the Orion a carrier or imply it is one.  I could say of a battleship "...the Yamato carried an unusually large number of aircraft, with four scout planes situated aft of number three turret."  No one would be foolish enough to classify a Yamato as a carrier, right?

Pg.4, Freespace Reference Bible (written by volition)

In addition, such massive amounts of energy input are required to open an inter-system node, that only the largest fusion pile reactors in existence are able to sustain it.  As a result, inter-system subspace travel is almost exclusively made by the largest vessels in production.  This fact has made the GTA’s Orion-class destroyer/carriers a pivotal and crucial part to the GTA’s tactical forces during the T-V War.

Which, I reckon, clearly classifies the Orions' role as both an offensive weapon on it's own right, and as a fighter carrying vessel (i.e. projection of space(?) power).

Regardless, this argument is completely and utterly pointless.  you're comparing the - loose - definition of a destroyer in Freespace (which includes a carrier-type role), with a completely abstract and non-existent class of ship.

You can;t possibly resolve it, because you can change the definition of a carrier to suit your argument.

(I'm use the general form of 'you' here, BTW)

[ChronoReverse]

I'm still reading everyone's posts and I shall be back as soon as my midterms are over


But just one thing.  The orion originally was practically a carrier.  It carried a (large) number of rather wimpy turrets and a decently-sized fighter force.